in the early hours of Saturday (February 16) local time, hours before the start of Nigeria's general election, Yakubu, chairman of the Electoral Commission, announced that the voting would be postponed to February 23, in order to hold a free and fair election. Netizens are talking about how the Nigerian election is delayed? What happened to the postponement of Nigeria's general election? Come and have a look.
Yakubu said that it was necessary to postpone the elections. The Committee needed time to deal with important issues and 'maintain the quality of our elections', but he did not provide specific details. 'the Committee concluded that it was no longer feasible to hold elections on time. '
With 73 candidates in this year's election, the current president, Muhammadu Buhari, faces fierce competition from the main opposition candidate, former vice president Atiku abroakar. Buhari's re-election is under serious threat due to his long absence, failure to effectively solve the problem of corruption and the country's weak economy.
Nigeria is the largest economy, the largest oil producer and the most populous country in Africa. The country's presidential elections in 2011 and 2015 were also postponed because of logistical and security issues.
It is worth noting that the two main candidates, Buhari and Abubakar, are 76 and 72 years old, respectively, while more than half of Nigeria's 84 million registered voters are under the age of 35.
On the eve of this vote, some data analysts found that since January 2018, the proportion of new voters added in each state of Nigeria is exactly the same, and the general election is suspected of being manipulated. Several offices of the Electoral Commission have also been set on fire.
Prior to the announcement of the postponement, an election commission official said: 'some of the election results and ballots are said to be missing. We need to track every sensitive material, count what we have and what we lack '. Another government official said: 'the legitimacy of the whole process will be questioned, and the winners may lack the moral authority to supervise state affairs. '
Because of the violent destruction of past elections, the Nigerian government issued a security warning in January this year, listing areas where violence may occur before and after the election, but attacks continue to occur. At least 66 people were killed on February 15 when unidentified armed men attacked villages in Kaduna State in northern Nigeria, Xinhua reported.